It’s been beautiful weather so far – a little overcast in the mornings, but sunny and gorgeous by noon – and today was no different. We finally left the hotel a bit late, since we had to repack all of our suitcases, and then Mom and I went to get the car from the car park a few blocks up on Fleet Street. Let me just tell you – it was easy to get there when we parked, as the streets were all going in our direction, but the way back kind of felt like a driving tour of Dublin, with all the one way streets. It literally was a 10 minute walk there, and a 15 minute drive back. Whew!
So once we were all packed and ready, we started off the morning the Irish way…with a Guinness. The Guinness storehouse is on the way out of town, and we stopped by simply to shop. No tour necessary, thanks – I don’t much need to know how you make it – just build it, and I will come drink it. My seat in the pub can be my own little personal field of Dreams, and after a few pints every man in the bar will start to look like Kevin Costner.
So we came to the Guinness storehouse…
…we shopped (and I almost bought Dora a headband with a Guinness hat on it)…
…and we conquered before moving on.
Guinness Factoid (from Aisling at OPW) – the harp is the national symbol of Ireland, and the Guinness harp is deliberately backwards, with the straight shaft on the left.
So, we were off again shortly thereafter, following the taxi drivers directions to leave via the Dublin Mountains. It was a beautiful drive up, though the roads were narrow and winding, but once we reached a high enough height, we could see out over all of Dublin, and we could even see the sea in the distance.
We drove for quite a while, perhaps an hour, through winding roads and little villages, roundabouts and one way roads that somehow handled two way traffic. The scenery was quite pretty…
…but I don’t know that my passengers saw much of it, as I think they had their eyes closed. I love to drive, and I even love to drive in DC, so driving on the back roads in Ireland was like Christmas – the speed limit (when there is one) is usually about 80kmph, and they are really good about telling you when that speed will get you killed.
We had a few narrow misses anyway, from cars coming around blind curves at top speed (usually halfway in my lane), but the Irish like to live, and drive, dangerously. I’m sure that coming back to DC and driving in Northern Virginia after this will seem like I’m driving Miss Daisy in a school zone.
We meandered about, driving along, listening to the TomTom tell us to “in 400 yards, take a left” (and WHO thinks in yards when you’re driving? I was like “this one?” “no, keep going” “this one?” “no, keep going” “THIS one???” the whole time). Much of what we passed was closed, since Monday was the Irish version of Labor Day, and most businesses were closed for the bank holiday. We finally stopped for lunch in some little town (no idea what the name was) when we saw that this place was open:
We didn’t end up getting lunch, as it happened, since the pub was hosting a private bachelor party, and according to the barman Hyle, hadn’t served food in “nigh on two years, since the road changed to take them off the main path.” So, no Irish Home Cooked Food, Daily or otherwise. He sent us down the road and two towns over, and told us to look for the castle, which was a good restaurant. Saying “look for the castle” to a tourist in Ireland is like telling someone in DC that it’s “next to the Metro” without giving any further detail. We drove two towns over, and stopped at this place, which was next to a big, gorgeous gothic stone building that kind of looked like it might be a castle.
Well, it wasn’t, the Castle restaurant was an actual turreted castle on the outskirts of the other end of town, but let me tell you about lunch at this place, since I can serve as a warning to others. When you look at a menu in Ireland, and in very plain handwriting it says “Farm fresh eggs with mayonnaise” under the sandwich menu, do not be fooled into thinking that this is a colloquialism for egg salad. It is not, and they aren’t kidding. You will end up with AN EGG, covered in mayonnaise.
I scraped all of the mayonnaise off, since I despise it, but still ended up having an egg for lunch, with a bit of shredded lettuce on the side. The best part was that Mom had a ham sandwich and Linda had chicken, which she generously shared with me after I stared morosely at my single egg for a few minutes, but my lunch was still the most expensive, at a whopping €6. I probably could have gone up the road to a farm and bought the whole chicken for that amount of money, but instead we stopped at a roadside inn and had the most expensive single food item I think I have ever eaten. I can’t cry fowl (ha!) because it was clearly listed on the menu, and I assumed it meant something else, but let that be a lesson to you. I live, you learn, from my €6, egg-shaped mistakes.
After lunch we headed off to Clonmacnoise, an ancient abbey that is incredibly difficult to find. It wasn’t in the TomTom, and all of the books simply gave directions like “20km from Athlone or 22km from Ballinasloe” – neither of which were in the TomTom either. But we eventually found it, thanks to the little brown road signs that direct people to local attractions, and I’m very glad we did.
Clonmacnoise is one of the earliest Christian sites in Ireland (circa 6th century AD), founded by St. Ciarán (pron. Kieran), and it’s right on the delta of the River Shannon. It’s also one of the largest ruin sites in Ireland, and has about 10 churches, 2 towers, and several hundred gravestones, many of which are Celtic crosses. It’s an absolutely beautiful site, with a really interesting history that they show in an audiovisual presentation in the visitor’s center. St. Patrick preached here when it was founded, and it is said that Charlemagne actually studied here. It was a bit windy out, and chilly, but I must have taken 400 pictures while I was here.
One of the things that I found most interesting about Clonmacnoise is that it is still an active site. St. Ciarán’s day is a big festival here, one of the churches is still used for active services, and the locals come here to picnic when the weather is nice.
I definitely recommend a side trip there – though we didn’t get to see the exhibits inside, as they close the visitor’s center quite a bit earlier than the site, it was still a gorgeous place and well worth the visit (and it’s included on the OPW Heritage card! Score!). It’s just a teeny bit difficult to find, but you could always as one of these guys, since they’re everywhere.
The rest of the day was spent driving to Kilkenney, which was an adventure all in itself. We again decided to take the scenic route, which took about 3 and a half hours to get there, which is about two hours longer than it would have taken us on the highway. All I’m going to say is thank God we had the TomTom, and somewhere in the world there is a guy in an office watching satellite feed of our trip, going “Hey guys! Come look at this!”. We literally went over the river (Shannon), through the woods (the Slieve Bloom Mountains) and though we didn’t see grandmother’s house, we did pass through some peat bogs where they were actively harvesting peat.
I thought that was kind of neat. We ended up in the Slieve Bloom Mountains, though they weren’t in bloom, and it was beautiful.
I don’t know the actual elevation, but my ears were popping, so it must have been fairly high up. The best part of the trip was the roads the TomTom took us on – most of them were very narrow, very rural and climbing ever higher. Mom was a bit nervous, since she doesn’t like heights AT ALL, but I was just glad that the roads were paved. Of course, as SOON as I mentioned that aloud, the TomTom took us here (and yes, this is a two lane road):
Oh. My. God. We went on this road for about 15 miles, and it was CRAZY. The road was incredibly narrow, had potholes that almost swallowed the car, and the brush on the right hand side concealed a drop off that pretty much fell down the mountain. We did run into another car up near the top, and after we waited for the driver to finish talking to an old man walking up the mountain, I ended up backing down the mountain for about a quarter mile before we were able to get to a point where we could both go around. He was laughing at us the whole time, and as I pass where he had been I saw that he had been sitting in a big roundabout, and my harrowing trip backwards down the hill had been totally unnecessary. Live, and learn from my bout with gravity.
We did finally make it out with our lives, and though I enjoyed myself thoroughly, I think Mom was tired from clutching at her chest a la Redd Foxx on Sanford and Sons. There was no Elizabeth on the mountain, but Mom saw Jesus everywhere, or at least she greeted him frequently.
However you look at it, as a perilous adventure or as a rural delight, I think at the end of the day, the view was definitely worth it, though my pictures don’t nearly do it justice.
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